A monstrous domestic abuser who hacked up his girlfriend, then slept with prostitutes in her Brooklyn apartment while her dismembered remains rotted for a month in her bathroom, got 26 years to life for the horrific crime.
Justin Williams, 27, of Manhattan, stashed 22-year-old D’Asia Johnson’s body parts in garbage bags stuffed in two suitcases that he hid in the bathroom of her Cypress Hills apartment after killing her on Aug. 21, 2022.
He used her money to pay for prostitutes, having sex with them just feet away from her chopped-up corpse, used her benefits card to stock his cabinets with food, and even pretended to be her in an attempt to trick her frantic family members into thinking she was still alive.
“It just doesn’t seem fair. It’s not fair,” the victim’s uncle, Michael Bell, said at Williams’ sentencing in Brooklyn Supreme Court Wednesday. “I can’t say other things ’cause it’s not nice. I just want justice to be served. Please give this man what he deserves as far as his sentencing.”
Murder victim D’Asia Johnson.
Williams, who admitted to the killing in a two-hour interview with police, still took the case to trail, and a Brooklyn Supreme Court jury found him guilty of murder and other offenses on June 16. His defense lawyer, Erin Darcy of the Legal Aid Society, argued at trial that Williams never intended to kill the victim.
Jurors heard a harrowing voicemail left by Johnson begging one of her friends for help as Williams butchered her, stabbing her five times in the chest and four times in her back.
“This is not a case of one quick chop or one quick stab that takes a second to occur,” Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun said before handing down the sentence. “The defendant did what he did over a lengthy period of time… . He chopped her up, thinking of how to dispose of the body, used her benefit cards, stole her money, he did all kind of things in her apartment. And then when he was discovered, the first thing he tried to do was he ran. That’s not the behavior of someone who is remorseful or sorry.”
Chun sentenced Williams to the maximum 25 years to life for second-degree murder, plus a consecutive one-to-three year sentence for concealment of a corpse.
“D’Asia Johnson suffered horrific violence at the hands of this defendant, who then compounded that cruelty with conduct that showed a staggering disregard for her life, her dignity and the loved ones desperately searching for her,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Wednesday.
Justin Williams is sentenced at Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, for the 2022 murder of his girlfriend D’Asia Johnson. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Williams and Johnson were romantically involved for years, and he beat and abused her, leading her to get an order of protection.
He stabbed her repeatedly on the night of the killing, and “had the defendant stopped there, this would already be an egregious crime warranting a maximum sentence,” assistant D.A. Matthew Perry wrote in a sentencing letter to the judge.
“The defendant chopped up D’Asia’s body into pieces and hid her body parts in a bathroom tied up in garbage bags for almost thirty days to decompose and rot all while D’asia’s family and friends frantically looked for her,” Perry wrote.
Dismembered
Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News
Medical Examiner’s Office personnel and NYPD officers and detectives investigate a dismembered body found in an apartment building on Linwood St. in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn on Sep. 21, 2022. (Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News)
Williams used towels and cleaning products to mask the smell while he lived in his dead girlfriend’s apartment for a month, in a supportive housing unit for women in crisis on Linwood St. near Atlantic Ave. — until building security knocked on her door because they hadn’t seen her in a while, according to prosecutors.
When friends came over to visit, Williams kept the windows open, and had his guests use a different bathroom.
Investigators also learned he had another girlfriend, Tatiana Hacket, who was using Johnson’s benefits card after her death, mostly at supermarkets in Brooklyn, according to a court filings. Hacket was sentenced to five years of probation last year.
“I don’t know what to say,” Johnson’s father, Raheem Barber, told the judge Wednesday. “Cut to the chase — just give that man what he deserves. That’s it. I don’t really got nothing else nice to say.”
Justin Williams is sentenced at Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026 for the 2022 murder of his girlfriend, D’Asia Johnson. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Darcy, Williams’ lawyer, pleaded for a lighter, 15-to-life sentence.
“He is very religious,” she said. “He is a man of faith, and he is someone who is full of remorse and full of contrition, and he’s repentant…. We didn’t go to trial lightly… No pretrial offer was extended to Justin, and it’s not reasonable to have expected him to accept a life sentence.”
She added, “Justin’s always maintained that he did not intend this tragic result, despite the fact that he’s acknowledged what he did throughout the case.”
Asked if he wanted to make a statement, Williams took a long look back at the courtroom audience, which included both his family and relatives of his victim, and said, “I love you all.”